Durham Bulls via Twitter

In the old days if you weren't at the ballpark the only way to follow a baseball game was to listen to the play-by-play on the radio. Then came the advent of television and later the Internet, so one could be anywhere in the world and keep up with each pitch and crack of the bat.

And now there's Twitter.

I've been following the Durham Bulls Twitter feed for the past couple of months, mostly out of curiosity as I'm just a casual fan. But this morning I work up to see the overnight feed from TweetDeck and was stunned to see 17 posts from last night's Durham v. Gwinnett game. It was so much fun to read them and see the final result that I decided to repost them all below. It's not quite like being there but I think it's a close approximation!

* Gwinnett scores a run in the top of the 1st with no hits. Lead 1-0 with the Bulls coming up.

* Riggans yard. Tied at 1.

* Gwinnett has taken a 3-1 lead thru 4.

* Bulls trying to get back into this game. Scored 2 in the 6th and now trail 6-3.

* Bulls are 2 for 9 with runners in scoring position so far tonight. Need to change that.

* Make that 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position. We need a clutch hit from Reid.

* Reid did come thru and the Gwinnett lead has been cut to 7-5. We still have runners on 1st and 2nd with only one out in the 7th.

* A comeback tonight is big because Syracuse swept a doubleheader tonight. The loser of the game will only be 3.5 games up for the wild card.

* Heading to the 9th and we are still trailing 7-5. Need another 9th inning rally.

* 2-outs, 2-strikes bottom of the 9th and Reid just crushed one into the RF stands. We are now tied at 7 and will head to extra innings.

* We head to the bottom of the 11th with the score still tied at 7.

* We now head to the 13th and we have run out of pitchers. Ray Olmedo is now our pitcher.

* We now head to the 14th. Crazy, but Ray Olmedo is back on the mound. Can he hold Gwinnett again?

* Timmons just hit a solo shot off Olmedo. Gwinnett leads 8-7.

* Need another 2-run miracle in the 14th. Olmedo did all he could, but Gwinnett scored two and now lead 9-7.

* Bottom of the 14th and the Bulls have runners on 1st and 3rd with one out trailing 9-7.

* Elliot Johnson has just struck out for the 5th time tonight, but this time the bases were loaded. We are down to our final out.

* Unbelievable. Weber did it again. Full count, 2-outs, bases loaded in the bottom of the 14th and Weber hit a walk-off double. Bulls win 10-9

Amazing! Check out the video of the late-game heroics on the Bulls' website. Go Bulls!

Wikipedia and Bev Perdue -- where's the love, y'all?

So I'm looking for a factoid this morning for a fun (!) civics getting to know you activity and I thought I'd throw in something about NC Governor Bev Perdue's former career as a teacher. I was just a little surprised, then, when I surfed over to Wikipedia and read this statement in her bio:

"Due to her uncanny resembalince the the Joker character from the Batman movies, she has been cast in the upcoming film. She needs to make up to render her face hidious and deformed, and her smile is a vivid portrayal of evilness."

Wow. That's a little harsh, don't you think? And there's no reference to which cinematic joker she might have a "resembalince" to so compare the three images below and state your preference:
Naturally in Wikipedialand the change (which was made earlier today) has been scrubbed from the current view but it can be seen in this history page. Another interesting fact about Perdue was also on an earlier version of the page today:

"She was soley responsible for the murder of young Emmit Till, a truly heinous act of American racism for which she recieved a 25 year suspended prision sentence."

Whoa. What's up with this? Looks like the changes were made by the IP address 71.76.200.120. Internet sleuths -- what can you say about this?

P.S. to Wikipedia: you know that "flagged revisions" idea? Better get a move on that.

Previewing: Picasso at the Nasher

I was invited to the press preview today for the "Picasso and the Allure of Language" exhibition at Duke's Nasher Museum of Art. Moi, the press? Yup. Turns out the good people at the Nasher were willing to expand their definition this year to include local folks who use social networking tools, so as a renowned (cough!) Durham blogger I got the call. And yes, I took pictures -- there are plenty below after all the verbiage.

More about the meta-experience later. The exhibition itself is really well done. It's an attempt to not do "just another Picasso exhibition" as one speaker put it, but to really examine the ties between his art and language. This included things such as correspondence from his friendship between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (note the collage above) to the way that his doodles in his art became like handwriting at times. My friend Xan always refers to his cultural reflections as "Unsophisticated Art Reviews" and in that vein I will share that I can't always define what a good exhibition is but I know one when I see one -- and this was it. In fact, my only questions came when I saw pieces that were fabulous but just seemed to be great works of art; in some sculptures and paintings I failed to see how they really tied to the theme of "the allure of language" but for most it was quite clear. So should you see this? Absolutely. It's worth the $10 admission charge (tickets here) or you can wait until the free community and family days this fall (very nice move, Duke!).

Now to the experience of the press preview. First, I was delighted to strike up a lovely conversation with the delightful Blue Greenberg of the Herald-Sun before the event began. Second, I enjoyed hearing the curators speak about the themes they found in the works (conversation, inscription and fiction). Third, it was nice to be greeted by Wendy Hower Livingston of the Nasher who invited me to be there and in addition to providing me with a nice press kit also made sure I used the appropriate hashtag (#nasherpicasso, FYI). So when I was listening to the curators and the other introductions I pulled out my iPhone and sent off a couple of tweets about what I was hearing. (I would've sent more but the vaunted 3G network disappeared after ten minutes. Shrug.)

But the most fun was yet to come. As I was walking out Wendy stopped me and asked if I was Mr. Jones and if I had been tweeting -- oh, she means @mistajonez, I realized! -- and that some people wanted to meet me. Wha? It turns out that the delightful @10ch who I had exchanged some direct messages with about the Museum of Life and Science was there and she wanted to meet me! She'd seen my tweets with #nasherpicasso and so had @negaratduke, a Duke professor who was there. It was delightful to meet them in such a, um, social manner. I got to talk to @10ch for a while and not only did I enjoy our conversation but I got to see her amazing sketches of what she experienced at the exhibit. I will link to them both here but you should click through to Flickr to see them both larger -- they're amazing!

So, to sum: exhibit GOOD Picasso GOOD social networking GOOD. Pictures below.